Students launch plan for rooftop groceries
The green movement may soon take a step up -- to the roofs of grocery stores.
Two UW-Madison students are launching Sky Vegetables, a business that would grow fresh fruits and vegetables on top of existing U.S. supermarkets.
The idea dreamed up by Keith Agoada and Troy Vosseller earned a first place award and $10,000 in the UW business school's G. Steven Burrill Business Plan Competition last week. They will compete in the governor's Business Plan Contest at the Wisconsin Entrepreneurs' Conference in June, where they could win $200,000 in start-up funds and services.
The concept capitalizes on growing consumer demand for locally grown produce and environmental sustainability.
"Everyone learns from their parents that fresh vegetables are better tasting and better for you," Agoada said. "If you can prove undoubtedly that you're offering fresher vegetables, that's something everyone can recognize."
Supermarket produce, on average, is picked seven to 14 days before it arrives on grocery shelves, after traveling about 2,000 miles.
But produce grown in a greenhouse on a supermarket roof would be right upstairs.
Agoada, a senior in the School of Business who will graduate with a management degree in May, came up with the idea while working as an intern in the university's botany greenhouses.
"I started thinking about where you can find flat space to grow things, and the answer seemed kind of obvious," Agoada said.
To develop a business plan, he worked with MBA student Troy Vosseller, one of two students behind the apparel start-up Sconnie Nation.
They collected information on structural engineering, agriculture and grocery marketing, and drew up a plan to grow fruits, vegetables and flowers using hydroponics -- water-based agriculture that can produce high yields in limited space.
Plans are to sell the produce in special sections in participating groceries.
University of Wisconsin-Madison horticulture professor Brent McCown, who advised the students as they wrote their plan, imagines that a grocery with a rooftop greenhouse "would have a huge marketing advantage" over competitors.
"This really is a new way to tap into consumer interest in foods that are locally produced and healthy to eat," he said. "If the greenhouse is on the roof, you can't get much more local than that."
Agoada and Vosseller have not yet approached grocers with their concept, but they hope to find a site for a prototype greenhouse in the next year.
"We're going to be patient," Agoada said. "I just won this contest, so I've got some money to live off of for now. We're going to wait for the right supermarket that wants to do this with us."
Paul Sakuma/Associated Press
Many grocery stores seek locally-grown produce whenever possible, and two UW students have developed a plan to make that more realistic.
